Thursday, November 25, 2004

Blog Torrent

At the end of a post yesterday, I made an off-the-cuff remark about the potential for the conference industry to take a hit from unauthorized audio/video content being either blogcasted in real time or distributed via P2P later. One very switched-on reader in Belgium (thanks/merci/dank u) has pointed out that Downhill Battle'sBlog Torrent launched in beta format yesterday. Nicholas Reville's introductory remarks pretty much sum up what I (and many others) have been thinking for some time, and big media probably should listen up:

"Blog Torrent is a key first step of our plan to make software that builds
participatory culture. Video (specifically television) is a huge part of
culture. But it's still an extremely top-down medium-- even as the tools to high
quality video and animation have become extremely cheap, very few people watch any significant amount of video other than what's on networks and cable. We
think homemade video can compete directly against professional television,
especially as reality shows have brought down viewers expectations about the
production values needed to make engaging TV."